Public Education

Over the years I have come across more authoritarian options to make the public schools better than I was aware of last time around: longer school hours, year around schools, uniforms, advanced degrees for school teachers, etc. As such, I think it wise to narrow the Education question to just primary education. Leave college out or to another question.

And yes, the old question was extremely biased. Need to work on that.

Anyway, here is a more comprehensive question with less bias:

PUBLIC EDUCATION

Public education is a key component to a successful democracy, or an example of democratic socialism — depending on whom you ask. Regardless, pundits all over the political spectrum claim that U.S. public schools are worse than they should be. They point to better test scores by students all over the world to back their assertions.

Should our system of public education be significantly reformed?

Yes, we need more class time. Extend school hours to match standard work hours.

Yes, we need more class time. Extend the school year and get rid of the long summer break when the kids forget what they have learned.

If you have vouchers going to a religious school, liberals will whine that it is government money going to a church.

Charging tuition for state schools and granting financial aid to the needy is what we do at the college level. The result is a mix of state, private and religious schools. And it continues to pass constitutional muster.

It isn’t libertarian paradise. The government does meddle. But whereas our public schools are the scorn of the developed world, our colleges are competitive, and our grad schools excellent.

Free Schools/Free University and Unschooling have been omitted. (IMHO they’re ideologically similar enough to be lumped into one answer along with proponents of Escuela Moderna and similar.) As an anarchist, inclined to comfort the afflicted and oppose capitalism, option N is horrifying to me, as the current organization of civil society would leave kids at the mercy of exploiters from the financial, corporate and clergical sectors. I picked “C” as the closest to what I support, as I would probably vote for it if the list of options presented were available on a ballot.

Perhaps this question could actually be “Education Spending” while another one deals with the content of education: for example, should minority populations be allowed/encouraged to develop curricula which represent their own history as attempted in Tucson, or should schools be uniformly pressed to teach Greco-Roman history, literature and values? Should schools be primarily a place of discipline, job training or pure learning? Should teachers grade students or vice versa?